Closer to the end... part of my story.

[Sunfl0wer]

Logically I believe that this relationship is over.  As soon as the lease is up, I know he will never sign another one with me.  However, something of it all doesn't sit right with me. I feel confused.  Please help me organize my thinking guys!  I don't even know where to start so I'll just write and see where I end up.

My uBPDbf and I were together 5 yrs.  He has more of a combo mix of BPD and NPD traits vs classic BPD.  His ex wife has classic uBPD fully.  For the first year of our relationship, he was still wrapping up things from his divorce. (Custody/sale of house).  I took on the classic caretaker-like role of supporting him through this difficult time.  I spent a lot of time teaching him about BPD and how to handle the ex, setting boundaries with her and helping their D10 adjust and raise her.  We took a lot of abuse from the ex.  I saw him as a victim of her and wrote off the red flags as him having some bad habits of allowing emotional abuse into himself.

While I believe relationships should go both ways, I just assumed that he was the "needy" one at the moment and when I am in need that he would be there for me as well. 

One of the red flags:

He always complained "I don't get enough time with my daughter."  It was a constant depression over the loss of her.  Early on, I was turned off by him putting her on a pedestal. He would get over protective and attack me without reason for imagined insults to her.  I may have suggested he needed to help her clean up her mess, but I in no way was derogatory about it.  He would respond as if I cursed her out or something horrible.  I chalked this up to a loving dad that was experiencing tremendous loss of being involved in the day to day rearing of his child. At the beginning he would apologize for his overreaction, however, as time went on, it was like he was looking for proof that some injustice was made against her or him or their relationship.

I actually at first wondered if he had a romantic love for her.  That is not the case, but his attachment to her was always odd to me.  He put a picture of himself next to her bedside.  Ok, that in itself may not be too odd, but it was a handsome picture of him at 17 years old dressed for his prom.  Is that odd to you guys?  I told him that unless he was off in the war, and it was a picture of him in an age the D knew him in, that I couldn't see why he put that there and that he should let her decorate the room with things she is interested in.  Or give her a pic of him for her mom's house but of an age of him that she recognizes him as a dad. (Not a young teen about to go on a date)

So she was apparently painted all white, a source of narcissistic supply for him.

So we got custody of her full time when mom left the area.  He, oddly enough, STILL continued to complain that they didn't get enough time!  He saw her everyday, would make her miss the bus on purpose so he could drive her to school for extra time together. (I said she needed the bus socialization to help her) He got home from work just an hour after her.  He would try to let me drive her to a sport or something but then would end up showing up anyway because he missed her!  What was the point in us sharing parental jobs if he was going to show up to drive her home anyway when I was already there for it?  So I suggested he could wake up and have breakfast together if he wanted.  Because if that wouldn't be enough for him then he'd have to quit his job and homeschool her!  And I told him so.  So he began having breakfast with her. 

I think the problem is that during his marriage him and her mom must have both sought comfort and acceptance in receiving this child's love and attention.  You can tell she was raised to comfort mom and dad, not herself. 

I assumed that he just didn't know any better and learned all his parenting from his ex wife.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this.  I just am getting it out.  I feel confused.  I feel like this man I was with used me to provide a family like appearance for his daughter.  I feel like he faked it or only tried, not to reap the benefits of a mature adult love bond between us, but to provide a model of a relationship to his daughter.  It now feels like he now left me for her!  She wanted to move to her mom's, so she is there full time now.  Besides him misdirecting all his anger of his loss at me, he has moved into her room.

I should mention that I have fought real hard for the best outcome for this D.  I went to court, participated in her family counseling with her mom and her mom's new husband.  I did everything a good step mom would do.  I balanced the needs of everyone when making decisions and truly have loved and cared for her.  All that while he only made decisions with her in mind, and if there was any spare energy or time for me then I only got the spare.  For ex, if I was sick and needing help, he would tell me no because he HAD to take her to buy socks for the next day.

I'm pissed off because when she first moved, he refused to allow me to participate in his phone calls with her for even 5mins of it.  He now says he misunderstood and thought I wanted the whole call, that is a lie, I was clear.  He would get jealous if D and I were having fun and he would either interrupt seeking fun attention or throw a tantrum.

Anyway, I have persisted in telling him to set boundaries with the ex.  He consistently slides and can't but tries or thinks he is.  Then D started taking over and bullying him too.  So I suggested some healthy boundaries.  Well, long story short... .I am persisting with my boundaries to not be bullied by his ex or D.  So this is why uBPDexbf has declared us broken up.  I actually can understand this.  I can understand that any guy who feels pressure from their GF to limit interactions between him and D would want the GF out of their life.  I get that, I can respect that, but I think he has different reasons.  Because he thinks I am trying to interfere with his relationship with his D.  I think he feels and has always felt that he cannot love two people at the same time.  He always compartmentalizes us.  He had a hard time spending time with us as a family and only did well one on one.  What he has with her is not a relationship but a fantasy more similar to a 3yr old level.  He fantasizes that she will one day adore him as she did at 3 yrs.  ugh!

Anyway... .  Sorry for the disorganized thoughts... .I'm feeling a bit down at the moment.

[Turkish]

Hi Sunfl0wer,

You put a lot of work into this r/s, and went above and beyond with support, empathy and compassion, it sounds like to me. It must feel like a betrayal to have him unhealthily attached to his old family, and yes, even his daughter.

I've been taking a parenting class lately, and in one section, it talks about parents (usually mothers, but fathers can do it, too) being "married" to their children. While babies and small children certainly need more attention, at some point, it shouldn't be forgotten that the adult couple is the primary r/s in the family. If the children don't see that, then what do they have to mirror?

I agree, if this is where your are going, that his r/s with his daughter sounds emotionally incestuous. The high school picture is creepy. It sounds like he's the one with abandonment and object constancy issues, too.

Where do you go from here, Sunfl0wer? How much longer do you have to live together, and do you have any gut feelings like this may work out, or if you even want it to? 5 years is a long time, and it sounds like it was a busy 5 years.

Turkish

[Sunfl0wer]

Thank you for your supportive words Turkish,

I wasn't sure if I'd get a response.   Maybe it was too long?  Too weird to relate to?  Too disorganized?  A combo likely.  I just was quite down and that's how things came out for that moment.

Anyway, I am having a difficult time making sense of what has happened still.  I guess it is also weird that we live together broken up.

Yes, it feels like a betrayal.  That is it.  Thanks for giving me the word.  I don't like to admit it, I like to think I'm not having negative feelings, but yes, I feel betrayed.  I entered this like a marriage, but just without papers.  My commitment was always greater than his.  He often acted like he has the same commitment level.  I always wondered why his actions did not match his words and it would drive me nuts.  Now I realize that he was just not having his own personality and saying what he thought I wanted to hear.

He was rarely there for me or my son.  Actually he painted my son black in the very beginning.  He tried to turn me against my son throughout.  I felt that was such a weird thing, kids are kids, why would anyone not like anyone's kid?  I just didn't get his way of thinking then.  He was always so competitive against my son... .both himself, and comparing his daughter.  I just don't think in the terms he does.  I thought he just didn't know better.  Was a victim of bad experiences and learnings from his ex wife uBPD.  I thought he would learn and grow with me.  Now I see it was more than him having PTSD, but him having a combo BPD/NPD traits.

Anyway,  thank you for the validation re: parents who act married to their kid.  It helps to hear. I forgot to mention that after their divorce, D10 started sleeping in bed with mom as comfort to mom I am sure, then started to try to get in bed with dad.  He asked me was this ok because he didn't want her to feel more loved by mom than him.  I explained that well we know mom is dating and D will feel rejected when uBPDmom then kicks D out of the bed for her new BF in a couple months, not to mention uBPDmom could make false accusations so he better not.  Idk, I understand co sleeping for young kids, but D10 never did this before, and I could see it was to serve a need of loneliness for mom and dad.  Anyway, He more acted like he worshipped the idea of her worshipping him.  Like he loved the three year old she used to be and was always sad, depressed, hopeful that if he just was a better dad, that he could get that love and affection back from her.  I could tell he was loving her for her past self.  A self that was before school and responsibilities started, that only job was to play, explore, have fun.  He would flip out if I told her it was time to focus on homework.  He would undermine me and instead ask her if she had any fun since she got home and strictly insist she stop working and have fun first. 

Can you explain how object constancy relates?

We have two more months.

He will not turn back towards me to work things out.  He equates turning towards me with abandoning his relationship and hope of getting his daughter back.  (She rejects him and doesn't want him in her life and acts out in manipulative ways to get back at him for putting her in that position). But it is much easier to be angry at me than his exUBPDwife for her alienation and damage to this D.

My gut says that we will not get back.  So why does this part of me feel sad about it?  Part of me just wishes I could have just the parts of him I love dearly, "what we could be."

We have only two months left and he plays games still.  I know he intentionally is not looking for a new place because he wants to know that I made the first move to end the relationship.  He wants to see me move on first... .before he does.  He mentioned that if I wanted to invite a guy over I could, he's ok with that.  (I'm not even dating) Yea, that way he can relieve himself of guilt for ending things and say to himself: see, she is fine, she is dating, I don't have to face my part in breaking us up and not working on things.

Thanks for listening

[Turkish]

The picture might be more of a "transitional object." There is a lot to this concept. Here is a long discussion on object constancy and the emotional states of a pwBPD:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=70884.0

[Sunfl0wer]

Thank you!

Wow, yes!  He had huge issues with this!

I would always lament that BF made decisions as though he had no integration of who the person was he was dealing with.  His ex wife always got a clean slate each time he dealt with her as if he never remembered what she was capable of or her desire to destroy him. And so did everyone else.  This caused so many disagreements with us in his choices.

I even came up with my own way of teaching this to him.  I grabbed some playdo ugh, and showed him how each interaction we have with a person gets another piece of dough added to their make up, so that people are made up of so many pieces that are integrated/ put together.  But that HE is different because when he interacts with people, and I'd pull off a tiny piece of dough to demonstrate, he leaves all the other pieces of the person behind and just deals with the tiny piece in front of him, forgetting to consider that there is more dough to their make up.

He was relieved to hear my explanation, he even happily shared it with our T himself!  I'm now feeling a bit cheated in our therapy as T never validated these things or gave them names.

I feel like sharing this with him so he has the language for it.  I'm afraid though, I know usually that kind of thing can backfire.

Hummm?